Kings International headteacher Ann Cockerham said Tomlinscote, in Frimley, had reneged on a deal, which meant the three Camberley schools would increase their admissions numbers by 10%.

Only 131 pupils have selected the Watchetts Drive, Camberley, school as their first choice, leaving Ann Cockerham to fill 69 places before the start of a new term in September.

Tomlinscote headteacher Tony Ryles said his school “had co-operated to the hilt” by abiding by the local agreement in the past.

He said an extra 55 pupils would be admitted in September, as he was trying to satisfy the wishes of as many parents as possible.

Mr Ryles said 367 applicants were vying for 240 places and if the school had stuck to this number, children from traditional catchment areas would have been excluded from attending Tomlinscote. He added it was not guaranteed that the overspill from Tomlinscote would choose Kings International College as an alternative school.

Kings International College was founded when France Hill was earmarked for closure because it failed to attract enough pupil numbers.

In a decision which angered many, Surrey County Council ploughed £1.3million into Kings to try to reverse the trend.

Education company 3Es Enterprises had taken over the running of the site when France Hill closed its doors in July 2001.

Ann Cockerham said the funding which had been given to Kings International was justified and said: “What in fact was given to this campus is no more than that given to the other schools over the last few years.

“Although the perception by some has been that considerable investment has been made in our college, the facts are that, in recent years, Kings International College, and before it France Hill School, have received less capital finance than the other two Camberley schools.”

The headteacher said it was early days for the school and she was confident there would be a return on the money as the school would attract more first preferences in the coming years.

“We have always been aware that our college is going to take more than a year to establish.

“When parents make their choices, we are inevitably going to be compared with two other well established and historically well performing schools able to show creditable sets of exam results.”

She added pupil numbers attending the school had increased and the college had to create extra classes in the year group.

But she admitted Kings International had never filled all of the 210 places available in each new intake.

“As an evolving college, we have yet to reach our total admission capacity and predict that this will vary year on year until our student performance data has built up.

“Since opening, therefore, we have taken a proportion of second preferences to top up our numbers.

“This potential number is reduced by the impact of Tomlinscote’s increase for 2003 and so our intake this year is inevitably reduced.”

But Mr Ryles hit back and said it was “an erroneous assumption” that pupils would automatically go to Kings International if they failed to get into his school.

The school had received “a tremendous” number of applications and he added he had to make decisions which would meet the demands of as many parents as possible.

“In order to stick to the 240 published admissions number, I would have had to cut out huge chunks of what had been our traditional catchment areas, like Heatherside, Paddock Hill and estates round the school,” he said.